11. January, 2005 - back to “normal”

Well, things are back to normal, sort of. Mom’s well is working again, and I got a tutorial on not only how to fix the problem (which I could do myself if I had the tools), but also on how to prevent it from happening again in the future. Sometime in the past twenty years, I’d forgotten that the pressure tank on a well needs to be repressurized with air periodically. The well-guys say twice a year, but I’m pretty sure just doing it in the fall would suffice for freeze-prevention. Argh. A half-hour of futzing around with an air-compressor would have saved a couple hundred dollars worth of service call.

On the way home, I stopped off to have a late lunch with Pete. He’s got a spiffy new house, and is also in the thick of home improvement. Then it was home to try and rest enough that I’d feel okay today. That including watching Man of La Mancha. It’s a musical, and the critics hated it, but I was impressed by Peter O’Toole, and found myself liking the movie. It worries me a little though, since when I was done watching it, I found myself thinking how attractive insanity is, and wishing I’d find a Dulcinea, even if she is only an Aldonza.

In any case, the time spent resting seems to have helped. I’ve still got some sniffles going, but I feel ready to at least tackle all the administrivia I should have gotten to yesterday, and possibly some paying work too. I hear it’s easier to run a business when there’s money coming in.

When I had lunch with Pete yesterday, I didn’t realize he’d moved into Minesota’s biggest development, but it makes sense. There’s an entire suburb where there used to be nothing, and it’s interesting seeing some of the additional stores are there just to sell things to people who’ve bought new houses. [press-patch]

Plain old Rock Paper Scissors getting too boring for you? Try Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard. Of course it’s probably not so useful for deciding things like who gets shotgun on the cab ride home from the bar, because you won’t be able to remember the rules when likkered up, but that’s not the only time you need to sort things out. [accordionguy]

You may have heard the ads about the end of late fees at blockbuster. Not so. Of course if you do their NetFlix-like deal, you don’t have late fees, but if you don’t, you get to buy the DVD when it’s a week late now. [scottk]